Inhibitory Control and Working Memory in Post-Institutionalized Children

Inhibitory control and working memory were examined in post-institutionalized (PI) children adopted into United States families from Russian institutions. The PI sample originated from institutions that were less severely depriving than those represented in previous studies and approximated the level of psychosocial deprivation, which is characterized by adequate physical resources but a lack of consistent and responsive caregiving. PI children (N?=?75; 29 male) ranged in age from 8–17 years (M?=?12.97; SD?=?3.03) and were grouped according to whether they were adopted after 14 months or before 9 months. A non-adopted comparison group (N?=?133; 65 male) ranged in age from 8–17 years (M?=?12.26; SD?=?2.75). PI children adopted after 14 months of age displayed poorer performance on the stop-signal and spatial span tasks relative to PI children adopted before 9 months of age after controlling for age at assessment. The two PI groups did not differ in their performance on a spatial self-ordered search task. Older-adopted PI children also showed poorer spatial span task performance compared to non-adopted children, but younger-adopted PI children did not. Task performance was significantly associated with parent-rated hyperactive-impulsive behavior in everyday contexts. These findings suggest that exposure to prolonged early institutional deprivation may be linked with inhibitory control and working memory difficulties years after adoption.     

Truth,Ramsification, and the Pluralist's Revenge

Functionalists about truth employ Ramsification to produce an implicit definition of the theoretical term true, but doing so requires determining that the theory introducing that term is itself true. A variety of putative dissolutions to this problem of epistemic circularity are shown to be unsatisfactory. One solution is offered on functionalists' behalf, though it has the upshot that they must tread on their anti-pluralist commitments.     

The Tempo of Verbal Interaction in an Open Therapy Group Conducted in Rotation by Three Different Therapists

This article examines the experience of new members joining an ongoing psychotherapy group. The group's stage of development and the new member's personality development are suggested to be important variables in this significant event. The experience of joining is found to share some things in common with the beginning phase of group for the group as a whole, but also noted are some unique elements. The process of joining is viewed as a highly anxious event for the new member, with antecedents in the individual's life experience. The new member is compromised by not knowing the group members, nor their shared history, norms, and dynamics. Concurrently, the group may experience a range of fears, wishes, and anxieties about the new member. Developmental considerations for the new member and the stage of group help to inform intervention strategies.     

Exploring the association between the 2-repeat allele of the MAOA gene promoter polymorphism and psychopathic personality traits,arrests, incarceration,and lifetime antisocial behavior

A line of research has revealed that a polymorphism in the promoter region of the MAOA gene is related to antisocial phenotypes. Most of these studies examine the effects of low MAOA activity alleles (2-repeat and 3-repeat alleles) against the effects of high MAOA activity alleles (3.5-repeat, 4-repeat, and sometimes 5-repeat alleles), with research indicating that the low MAOA activity alleles confer an increased risk to antisocial phenotypes. The current study examined whether the 2-repeat allele, which has been shown to be functionally different from the 3-repeat allele, was associated with a range of antisocial phenotypes in a sample of males drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Analyses revealed that African-American males who carried the 2-repeat allele were, in comparison with other African-American male genotypes, significantly more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. Additional analyses revealed that African-American male carriers of the 2-repeat allele scored significantly higher on an antisocial phenotype index and on measures assessing involvement in violent behaviors over the life course. There was not any association between the 2-repeat allele and a continuously measured psychopathic personality traits scale. The effects of the 2-repeat allele could not be examined in Caucasian males because only 0.1% carried it.     

How a “Reasonable Doubt” Instruction Affects Decisions of Guilt

Jurors are instructed to render a guilty verdict if they feel the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury is often told that this does not mean an absolute certainty of guilt and that even if it were possible to imagine a scenario in which the defendant is innocent, a guilty verdict may still be appropriate. Here, participants read a case summary. They were either told to say that the defendant was guilty if they believed in guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or were given more detailed instruction stressing that they did not have to be absolutely certain of guilt to give a guilty verdict. In Experiment 1, participants provided “think-aloud” protocols. Content analysis revealed that those who were given this instruction often used the phrase reasonable doubt to justify their guilty verdicts by saying that although they were not certain of the defendant's guilt, their belief exceeded the reasonable doubt threshold. None of the participants in the control group did this. Experiment 2 was designed to test if the instruction affected belief in guilt and the reasonable doubt threshold quantitatively. The instruction affected both people's belief in guilt and the threshold that they used to define reasonable doubt. The implied values for reasonable doubt were 63% for those who received the instruction and 77% for the control group. Implications for jury decision making are discussed.     

Evaluations of People Depicted With Facial Disfigurement Compared to Those With Mobility Impairment

There are few extant studies of stereotyping of people with facial disfigurement. In the present study, two experiments (both within-participants) showed positive evaluations of people depicted as wheelchair users and, from the same participants, negative evaluations of people with facial disfigurements, compared to controls. The results of Experiment 2 suggested that implicit affective attitudes were more negative toward people with facial disfigurement than wheelchair users and were correlated with evaluation negativity. Social norms were perceived to permit more discrimination against people with facial disfigurement than against wheelchair users. These factors could help to explain the evaluative differences between the two disadvantaged groups.     

Web-based mood induction

This article introduces the methodology of Web-based mood induction and it presents empirical evidence for its feasibility. The Velten procedure, autobiographical recall, and mood-suggestive photographs were tested for their effectiveness in evoking either a positive or a negative mood when compared to an untreated control group. The Velten technique and the photographs successfully deteriorated mood, but were unsuccessful in generating a positive mood. Autobiographical recall failed to induce either positive or negative mood. The effectiveness of these on-line techniques is compared with the effectiveness of similar off-line mood induction procedures.     

The Reading Maturity Survey: Steps Toward Instrument and Construct Validation with College-Level Readers

There is a need to promote growth past basic reading proficiency toward the more substantial idea of reading maturity. The reading maturity construct has a history of being valued, at least in principle. However, it is a complex construct, and this makes its measurement challenging. The present research study addressed aspects of this challenge by using data collected from an instrument called The Reading Maturity Survey, administered twice to 382 college students, to help validate the instrument and to add one piece of validation evidence to the internal structure of the reading maturity construct. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to identify the latent literacy constructs and to examine the relationships between these constructs. The findings contribute to further psychometric validation of The Reading Maturity Survey, and add one new piece of quantitative evidence supporting the theory-based construct of reading maturity. Because this study provides some preliminary evidence of viable ways to both measure and define this construct, our hope is that the findings would move the reading field one step closer to being able to better recognize an overarching unified construct of reading maturity, perhaps eventually (re)establishing it as a goal that literacy education could pursue.     

Connecting DSM-5 Personality Traits and Pathological Beliefs: Toward a Unifying Model

Dissatisfaction with the DSM-IV model of personality disorders has led to the development of alternative conceptualizations, including pathological trait models and models linked to particular theoretical approaches, such as Beck and Freeman’s (1990) cognitive framework. An important issue involves the potential to interweave such models into a single, parsimonious system that combines their distinct advantages. In this study, pathological trait and dysfunctional belief data from 616 individuals in a non-clinical sample were evaluated for commensurability using structural equation modeling. These models can be integrated via five higher-order factors, and that specific dimensions of dysfunctional beliefs can be differentiated based on features of the DSM-5 trait model. Overall, these results suggest that traits provide scaffolding for individual differences in pathological personality, within which dysfunctional beliefs offer specific vectors for clinical intervention in a cognitive framework. Implications of the empirical commensurability of trait and cognitive models are discussed.